Minnesota Wind Interactive Map Application

Minnesota Wind Interactive Map Application

Short Description:

A map application that can function as a looped presentation or as an interactive GIS. It displays locations and metadata for large wind turbines, all known wind farms and projects, and wind speeds in Minnesota.

Interpretive Text:

The following data layers are included:

oWind Turbines: This layer consists of every wind turbine over 200 feet tall in Minnesota. The map has 2,073 different turbines that can be selected by the user to activate a popup box showing details such as date of construction, height, model, megawatts, and more. This map illustrates information that has not been available until very recently. In February 2014, the USGS published a detailed geographical dataset of wind turbines over 200 feet tall throughout the United States. It was released to the public after several years of painstaking work verifying locations through visual inspection in Bing Maps, and researching the details about each turbine.

oWind Projects Map: This layer consists of the locations of wind projects by county throughout Minnesota. It combines the data from Open Energy Information about large wind farms with data from the Minnesota Department of Commerce for small and medium scale wind farms. Like the USGS Turbine project, this dataset from the Department of Commerce was compiled for the first time just this year. Since many of the wind projects depicted are privately owned by individuals, the map is generalized to show the scope of wind at the county level.

oWind Speeds:The Minnesota Department of Commerce has published data for 30, 80, and 100 meters. This map is in a PDF format with the three different heights overlaid for the user to click between them to compare the speeds.

The wind farms and wind speeds maps can also be combined for the user to see how the locations of wind projects match up to higher wind speeds in Minnesota.